Bad Luck Fale Talks When AJ Styles Joined The Bullet Club, If He Was Considered The Leader
Bad Luck Fale spoke with New Japan Pro Wrestling on when AJ Styles joined the Bullet Club, The Young Bucks, and the long-term success of the Bullet Club. Here are some of the highlights:
If he thought the Bullet Club would be so successful for this long:
"No, not at all. But we were given a chance to start something, and embraced it, went with it and here we are. I think really it's a credit to how smart we were in bringing in the right people at the right time, and changing with the times. Those guys (like nWo), it was a case of throwing everyone in together, it was super hot and explosive but it couldn't last long."
When AJ Styles joined the Bullet Club in 2014:
"AJ was a few months after. There was a little bit of animosity at first, about him coming in and being the leader of what we had started, y'know. We were bitter but we accepted it. But the best thing that happened was when he came in, won the (IWGP) belt, and nobody knows this story, but we came back to the hotel and he got all of us in a huddle. And he said 'I know I've come in as an outsider, but I'm here to try and make things work with everyone.' He just addressed the elephant in the room.
"From that night forward ? Look, nobody decided there was a leader. That's why the Bullet Club worked, because nobody pegged themselves as 'I'm the leader, I'm the leader'. Because when you become like that, it becomes about the one guy and not the group. So to AJ's credit he never called himself the leader. That way we were all on the same level. So if someone had a push, everybody supported them. Everybody would be there to say 'this guy's the best wrestler in the world', and we could all rely on the same support. That's why is to us as the OGs, it all fell apart when Kenny (Omega) took the helm. (The Elite) took it somewhere else and it felt like we weren't part of the narrative anymore. It was so different to what we had started. So that's why during the G1 we started taking things back to where they were."
The Young Bucks:
"The Bucks were always good. Always good. I've always liked them because they rise up to the challenge that they're faced with. When they first came in, the junior tag division really had no hype behind it, but them coming in helped us; they had a niche following on the American indie scene and from there, we helped them get bigger in Japan, and they helped us get bigger in America. For them to go from that level in 2013 to where they are now, that's just amazing."
Fale also discussed more about the early days of the Bullet Club. You can check out the full interview by clicking here.